Getting Over It
By Kathleen McCleary | April 13, 2022 |
Last week my youngest daughter went back to work in her office for the first time since the pandemic began. It was harder than she expected. Her office is an open space with dozens of cubicles, and she found herself distracted by all the faces and voices, by the need to be “on” all day with people, self-conscious about others overhearing her as she conducted meetings from her cubicle. It felt, she said, like being thrown into the proverbial deep end of the pool and being told to swim. And this kid is an extrovert. Maybe the organization could have handled this transition better, she said.
And I said, How much experience do you think your company has with transitioning employees back to in-person work after a global pandemic? They’re learning as they go, too. We’re all figuring it out.
This made me think of one of the newer aspects of what we’ve been through the past few years, which is RECOVERY. As writers, we spend a lot of time thinking through the trials and tribulations our characters have to face. We all know the basic story diagram of background/inciting incident/rising action/climax/falling action/resolution. But who are our heroes after they’ve survived their ordeals? How do they get through their days, interact with the world? If their ordeal has affected other characters and the world they inhabit, how are those others coping? What does this new world look like?
As you write your characters into the latter parts of their story, as they come out the other side of whatever you’ve put them through, think through all the aspects of their recovery (or rebirth or redemption or healing). Flesh out their adaptation to their post-ordeal selves and post-ordeal world. Consider:
What they value. Whether your character has been through a broken love affair, an epic battle, a devastating loss, a challenging journey, or whatever hell you’ve unleashed upon them, it’s a good bet their priorities have changed. Look at us as we emerge into this post-pandemic world, for instance. I know I spend less time sweating (or doing) the small stuff and more time prioritizing people I love and making time to do things I genuinely enjoy. Connection of all kinds means more to me than ever, and I will never take hugging for granted again., What were your character’s priorities before? What are they now? How and why did what they’ve endured change those priorities?
Who they value. Facing down challenges has a way of clarifying your vision, so you see more clearly the people who lift you up, and the people who drag you down. Forged by adversity, it’s easier to turn your time and attention and energy toward those who restore you, and away from those who deplete you. Who are those others in your character’s life? How has their relationship to those closest to them changed?
The dark side. Listen, when you go through an ordeal of some kind, you rarely emerge unscathed. Sometimes hardship heightens our flaws and our fears; sometimes it scars us in ways that leave us forever different and a little (or a lot) damaged. Someone who was prone to melancholy before an ordeal may find themselves more likely to sink into black holes of despair afterwards; someone who was filled with hubris may become more patronizing and condescending. What doesn’t kill you may make you stronger, but it may not make you kinder, braver, calmer, or cheerier.
How they interact with the world. I’ve noticed over the last month or so that people I know are traveling more (or planning to travel more), or socializing differently (either in smaller, closer circles or in bring-on-the-party celebrations). Some people are angrier, more argumentative (just read all the stories about irate people on airplanes); others are volunteering more, or spending more time in the outdoors. But it’s a safe bet we’re all interacting differently in some way with the world beyond our four walls. What does re-entry look like for your character after their trauma or challenge?
What’s stayed the same. What are your character’s most essential values and qualities that have remained unchanged, or strengthened or deepened? How and why did their ordeal intensify those characteristics?
How important is it to you to consider how your characters heal after adversity? Has going through the pandemic changed the way you think about adversity and healing in your fiction?
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (https://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she’s not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
[coffee]
Hello Kathleen. At the end of your very readable article, you pose a useful question: has the pandemic changed the way I approach my characters’ conflicts? To be honest, I’m not sure. As a retiree who’s been working from home for years, I’ve needed to make far fewer adjustments than most. But it seems likely that the relentless daily emphasis on the virus, vaccines, anti-vaxxers and the rest of it has formed a layer of its own against which I think and work. I have a central character who is intolerant and critical, but by story’s end he’s less so. This was going to be true in any case, but you have me thinking that the way the character’s character alters is probably in part the result of what’s been on everyone’s radar for two years. Thanks for making me think about that.
Hi, Barry. Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think what we’ve been through has left no one unscathed, or unchanged. It’s fascinating to me to think that even though you have had to make few adjustments in your own life, you’ve seen subtle changes in your character in ways that soften him a little. I do believe the old saying about writing fiction that “the feelings are all facts; it’s just the facts that are fiction.” As writers we can’t but help put our own emotional experience into the characters we create. Best of luck with your writing.
Hi Kathleen, You daughter’s experience is in many ways a metaphor for a struggle our society often ignores. In my experience, as a L&D RN, we help a woman labor, give birth. But when she is about to be discharged from the hospital–what are we doing, except moving fast to allow the cleaning staff to prepare the room, finish our charting. If I had time, especially with teen mothers and I had many, I went over the discharge paperwork, but I also talked about mothering, about stimulating a child with love, but also with language. That was my thing. Talking to your baby. Finishing a novel in many ways feels similar. Some characters you are eager to dispense with, but OTHERS, you want to hug them, help them adjust so they find the right road. Metaphorically and yes…I think that should be in the text. Often our culture can be about MOVING ON. What about STAYING, reviewing, assessing. I think we all would make better choices if we didn’t leap into things. I hope your daughter settles in. And then I believe she can help others who find themselves in that uncomfortable new beginning.
I love your analogy about discharging new mothers from the hospital–I remember well the total sense of panic I felt when the doctor cleared us to go home after I had my oldest daughter. That’s another big transition/experience/ordeal/accomplishment that leaves us forever changed. It sounds like you were the kind of nurse all new moms need. The idea of reviewing and assessing a major experience before moving on is exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks so much for this!
There’s so much good stuff here, Kathleen. The most satisfying (hopefully) thing in a story for me is always to finally observe the MC in his/her new configuration and I want to deliver that to my reader. Like Barry, I’d already been isolating up here in my garret when things went south. What changed was that I felt a whole new level of concern for my extended family, especially my daughter and her kids.
My ‘bubble’ changed size and shape, and it has made us all closer and more resilient. Hopefully, I can convey that kind of change in my characters. Your post today will help me with that, so thank you!!
Hi, Susan. I’m so glad that you found something useful in the post today. I agree that one of the most satisfying aspects of writing a novel is writing the MC after they’ve undergone the experiences that have changed them, in big or small ways, and after they’ve entered the new world on the other side–if it’s just the same old world but they’re seeing it through new eyes. Good luck!
Your focus today is characters in a story’s recovery phase; specifically what they value, who they value, dark corners of the psyche, manner of interaction with the world, and what in them hasn’t changed. Great stuff. Among other things, you could add what they believe and how they see themselves.
However, it strikes me that these aspects of character are also worth considering as we meet them at a story’s outset. Characters don’t arrive as blank slates. Indeed, in our back story worshipping literary era there hardly a character we meet who does not already carry a wound, burden or arrive in a state of paralysis. In some novels nowadays, recovery is not the end result but the entire body and point of the story in the first place.
More generally, though, characters are people. People are explained by psychology. We all have values, people we esteem, dark fears, a public face, and enduring things that define who we are. That’s true on every day–or in story terms, on every page–not just at the end.
Cool post. Got me thinking.
Great point about thinking through all these elements of character at the beginning as well as after the story’s climax. “As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined” is one of those cliches that (like most cliches) is very true. Who we are at the outset, and the experiences we’ve had, of course influence how new experiences shape us. For me, all the psychology of creating different characters is the most compelling part of writing fiction. Thanks for your comment! You got me thinking, too.
A very interesting essay–thank you, Kathleen. Right now I’m working on an “aftermath story,” one might say. My MC is observing the trauma experienced by two other characters in a previous story–they were attacked, nearly killed, and while both are strong people, there’s still fallout from what they went through in the previous book. Consequences include legal complications, physical recovery, and psychological trauma. Ruby can’t stand to be on the ranch she grew up on and loves dearly–she has no home, now. She and Gabe are profoundly, passionately dependent upon each other and separation for any period of time is traumatic for them.
But her best friend and executive assistant Linda is facing trauma of her own as she realizes the degree to which her brother-in-law Clyde has nefarious notions about her. She has to flee the US to get away from him, and even then, that might not be enough because of Clyde’s growing political power and international connections. Like Ruby, while Linda has a house to live in, it isn’t home. Ruby and Linda are essentially homeless, though housed. They may be affluent refugees, but they’re still refugees–and need to create new lives for themselves in a different setting than they imagined.
Before the pandemic, I had touched on aftermath of traumatic events in my stories. But the pandemic has made me understand this even more. We aren’t opening up just yet, but we’re elders with health issues, and we have an adult child on immunosuppressant medication who has a lot of health issues. Just learning how to face alternatives in this new era is our challenge–learning how to connect differently, and manage life differently is our big issue. Still working through those things, especially as I deal not only with Covid safety but the demands of old age, which also redefines what I can do. Those two years are gone and with them certain possibilities. Sigh.
Kathleen, you answered my question! Did I develop the main character’s arc & the secondary characters, too. Happy to know I did! The debut historical fiction book is ready to publish. I’m going to copy your post to make sure I include all the elements in the next book, a Woman’s Fiction. The main character will go through serious medical challenges with steel courage & dives into depression. Secondary characters show support, some in harmful ways. Thanks so much for making me remember what characters need to go through to make a story a worthwhile read. Personally, I survived the pandemic isolation. I’m a retired nurse practitioner, and concentrated on writing & remotely supporting family & friends. Social media, blog friends, Facebook, FaceTime, all kept me connected. 📚🎶 Christine